Absolutely Important

"For whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's."


In the past few years, Roman Catholics have taken up a new argument for unity with the Orthodox.  It is, in the words I read on a blog yesterday, that "we are mutually engaged in the same battle of survival", presumably against the double onslaught of materialism and Islam.

But the Orthodox most emphatically are not engaged in any such battle.  And here is a highly important point:  this battle is for the Holy Spirit to wage, Whose function it is to preserve His Church and Who alone can do it.  It's not our job.

The reason this is so utterly important is that historically, many crimes against humanity have been perpetrated by people who took it upon themselves to try to "preserve the Church," who regarded that as the highest good, higher even than love or compassion or kindness or any moral precept. 

The Holy Spirit keeps His Church, - yes, through every calamity - and He alone keeps Her. He will never forsake her even until the end of time, never leave us orphans, and He will not allow the gates of hell to prevail against His Church - guaranteed. For the Church is Christ's own Body. 

If He doesn't preserve a given denomination, it's because it is not of the Church after all, never was or through infidelity has not remained so.  In any case, God does not need us to engage in any battle to preserve His Church and we're only asking for trouble if we do it. 

(Even if this battle were ours, it would not be the right basis for Catholic-Orthodox unity.)

Our battle is to remain faithful to the end, entrusting the rest to His hands and trying to ready ourselves for martyrdom, praying it will not come.